Monday, January 10, 2011

72 Pieces of Love

I will die for you, will you die for me? I can do anything for your pleasure. I can even pluck the stars for your pleasure. These are some of the well known slogans often reiterated by people who claim to be in love with each other. To be with his or her beloved these love birds are ready to risk their career , their lives and are even ready to abandon their home, their parents, relatives, friends….

They have an imagination that once they are united with their beloved, their lives will change forever. They will experience the same joy & happiness which a residence of Vaikuntha loka experiences. So they finally get married. However within a short span of time they find that their world of fantasy remains a distant dream. The amount of so called love they had for their beloved starts showing downward trend.

Even the statics shows that most of the time the culmination of the love marriage is divorce. The same 2 people who were desperate to live together become desperate to get separated. The recent incident when a man chopped his wife’s body into 72 pieces is a telling example as how sour the modern day love turns into.

Today’s love is not actually love but it is lust or physical attraction. Once the physical demand is satisfied the utility factor of the individual decreases and the person starts searching for some more better means which will satisfy their physical needs.

Modern society has made the word ‘love’ very vague. True love means sacrifice. True love means giving everything without expecting anything. A mother’s love for her child and a soldier’s love for his motherland are examples of selfless love. A mother dedicates her life for her beloved children and a soldier gives his life for his beloved motherland.

The selfless & true love exhibited by the gopis of Vraja for their beloved Lord Krishna is unparalleled.

To glorify the love which the Gopis had for Lord Krishna, Krishna enacted a pastime. He asked Narada Muni to go to different places, and tell people that I am having headache & my headache will subside only if someone gives the dust of their feet which in turn I will apply on my head. As per the instruction Narada Muni went to different places, met different people including great sages, learned scholars, philosophers, temple priests and requested them for the dust of their feet which Lord will apply on his head which in turn will cure his headache. Everyone refused; they argued if Lord smears his head with the dust of our feet then we will go to hell. They said to Narada Muni, Don’t think that we are fools, please forgive us, we don’t want to go to hell and suffer.

Narada Muni got disheartened, finally he went to Vraja, there he met the gopis and told them about Krishna’s headache and its cure. The moment the gopis heard about this they immediately started collecting dust of their feet. They even soaked their feet in the water so that their feet can gather more dust. Seeing this Narada Muni asked the gopis, “Don’t you know that if Krishna applies the dust of your feet on his head then you all will go to hell?” Hearing this the gopis replied, “If we are able to provide even a moment of pleasure to our beloved Krishna then we will consider our lives to be worthy and for this if we have to suffer in hell for eternity then we are ready for it. For us Krishna’s happiness is the most important thing.”

Narada Muni understood that the gopis selfless love for the Lord is supreme.